Well....wiring in a 1750s thatched cottage attic, not wiring made from thatch
One we have been letting for over 20 years (as well as enjoying ourselves!)
I have read Thatch Roof Wiring - https://www.electriciansforums.net/threads/thatch-roof-wiring.106532, but welcome any ideas for us.
We occasionally have mice in our attic space (as any thatch will). Ideally we would like a thatch roofspace with no wires. But we have some. Regular cables to lights.
Our electrical certificate needed refreshing this summer, and the electrician we got was pretty thorough (although admitted to being unfamiliar with any special requirements regarding thatched properties).
He did, however, flag up some concerns over the "insulation resistance" of the upstairs lighting circuit.
The value seen on the circuit was 2.5MΩ. Apparently below 1 is a direct 'fail'
As comparison, the downstairs lights were 55....the cooker 500, the hob (directly behind the consumer unit) '>999'
He wasn't happy enough to give a 5-year certificate, so we only have 12 months, with the goal of 'remedying' things soon
The previous certificate was done after they had done some chunky work moving the main consumer unit from a hard to access space under the hob to go outside in the meter box....& all circuits are listed on that document as >200, which makes me suspect they didn't 'properly' test things That, or something has degraded massively & is at the point of failure
The house has two bedrooms upstairs, plus a 'new extension' bathroom off one: all with ceiling (& wall) lighting. Also a cupboard with lighting and a wall light over the stairs.
I am not a sparks, but we are considering solutions to this - ultimately, we want the place to be as safe as possible....albeit ideally without thousands of pounds of work We already removed the woodburner for a quality electrical replacement for safety reasons.
He has a couple of ideas which we will examine more later this week.
First one: to run SWA cable up into the attic, to replace all existing 'regular' plastic power cables.
SWA into some kind of ceiling 'light boxes' in the rooms below, where their can be junctions (none allowed now in the attic).
Using some 'kinetic' switches in the rooms to be able to power the lights without any physical connection. I've not found any that connect to 240v lighting, only some that connect to 12v under cupboard-style lighting. If anyone has pointers for those, I'd love to hear!
Sounds like we would need a fairly chunky box for the cabling to be done in the rooms below, & their ceilings are not that high....
Second one: to examine options for conduit. This might sound the simplest, but I believe might still require perhaps significant rewiring in order to get cabling into it - unless anyone can suggest conduit that can be wrapped around existing cabling? (which I feel would be a brilliant solution!)
He appears less keen on this....ultimately, our attic is relatively small, & perhaps the first option 'sounds' the easier & safer?
Has anyone here undertaken either of these....or indeed undertaken work to remove perhaps all wiring from the attic space below the thatch?
We cannot put wiring under the flooboards, because the rooms below are under the floorboards.....the joys of an old cottage.
Someone else mentioned Pyro/MICC....but they sound very specialised (from what I am reading!).
I'm also toying with how we could remove all attic wires - perhaps running wall lights from sockets, but the bathroom and staircase lighting might be harder (no sockets)
Another might be to monitor that resistance value to see if it has actually always been around 2.5 - I have no real idea how bad that is, or if it might be fine for the next 50 years....I suspect that the RCDs should trip IF a mouse were to nibble through, & given the cables are on the floor of the roofspace, away from thatch, that the risk of incident is fairly low.
Any hints, tips, dos/don'ts, etc, gratefully received.
& obviously we will be guided (driven?!) by the electrician: just fishing for ideas and experience other have.
One we have been letting for over 20 years (as well as enjoying ourselves!)
I have read Thatch Roof Wiring - https://www.electriciansforums.net/threads/thatch-roof-wiring.106532, but welcome any ideas for us.
We occasionally have mice in our attic space (as any thatch will). Ideally we would like a thatch roofspace with no wires. But we have some. Regular cables to lights.
Our electrical certificate needed refreshing this summer, and the electrician we got was pretty thorough (although admitted to being unfamiliar with any special requirements regarding thatched properties).
He did, however, flag up some concerns over the "insulation resistance" of the upstairs lighting circuit.
The value seen on the circuit was 2.5MΩ. Apparently below 1 is a direct 'fail'
As comparison, the downstairs lights were 55....the cooker 500, the hob (directly behind the consumer unit) '>999'
He wasn't happy enough to give a 5-year certificate, so we only have 12 months, with the goal of 'remedying' things soon
The previous certificate was done after they had done some chunky work moving the main consumer unit from a hard to access space under the hob to go outside in the meter box....& all circuits are listed on that document as >200, which makes me suspect they didn't 'properly' test things That, or something has degraded massively & is at the point of failure
The house has two bedrooms upstairs, plus a 'new extension' bathroom off one: all with ceiling (& wall) lighting. Also a cupboard with lighting and a wall light over the stairs.
I am not a sparks, but we are considering solutions to this - ultimately, we want the place to be as safe as possible....albeit ideally without thousands of pounds of work We already removed the woodburner for a quality electrical replacement for safety reasons.
He has a couple of ideas which we will examine more later this week.
First one: to run SWA cable up into the attic, to replace all existing 'regular' plastic power cables.
SWA into some kind of ceiling 'light boxes' in the rooms below, where their can be junctions (none allowed now in the attic).
Using some 'kinetic' switches in the rooms to be able to power the lights without any physical connection. I've not found any that connect to 240v lighting, only some that connect to 12v under cupboard-style lighting. If anyone has pointers for those, I'd love to hear!
Sounds like we would need a fairly chunky box for the cabling to be done in the rooms below, & their ceilings are not that high....
Second one: to examine options for conduit. This might sound the simplest, but I believe might still require perhaps significant rewiring in order to get cabling into it - unless anyone can suggest conduit that can be wrapped around existing cabling? (which I feel would be a brilliant solution!)
He appears less keen on this....ultimately, our attic is relatively small, & perhaps the first option 'sounds' the easier & safer?
Has anyone here undertaken either of these....or indeed undertaken work to remove perhaps all wiring from the attic space below the thatch?
We cannot put wiring under the flooboards, because the rooms below are under the floorboards.....the joys of an old cottage.
Someone else mentioned Pyro/MICC....but they sound very specialised (from what I am reading!).
I'm also toying with how we could remove all attic wires - perhaps running wall lights from sockets, but the bathroom and staircase lighting might be harder (no sockets)
Another might be to monitor that resistance value to see if it has actually always been around 2.5 - I have no real idea how bad that is, or if it might be fine for the next 50 years....I suspect that the RCDs should trip IF a mouse were to nibble through, & given the cables are on the floor of the roofspace, away from thatch, that the risk of incident is fairly low.
Any hints, tips, dos/don'ts, etc, gratefully received.
& obviously we will be guided (driven?!) by the electrician: just fishing for ideas and experience other have.
- TL;DR
- Looking for ways to either remove our cabling in the attic, or perhaps making it safer (against rodents!)
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